The doors of the elegant Georgian town house in Bath swung open promptly at 10 yesterday morning and the first of the "Janeites" swept in. In the course of the day, 300 or so visitors were given scholarly insights into the city's impact on the life and work of Jane Austen, and a flavour of how Bath would have looked and felt in Regency times.

And then most of them were tempted into the Jane Austen Centre's gift shop, where they could choose souvenirs ranging from Austen fridge magnets to tea towels, from Austen cross-stitch kits to goat's-milk soap.

Certainly, they could pick up copies of the books they had been learning about, and modern spin-offs, from a spoof called Pride and Promiscuity, which promises to reveal "the lost sex scenes of Jane Austen", to DVDs of last year's Bollywood-flavoured movie, Bride and Prejudice.

And should those Janeites, as aficionados of the writer are termed, be feeling thirsty after all that shopping, they were invited to head upstairs to the tearoom for a cup of Jane Austen tea - a secret blend made by the Bath teamaker Gillards. Bath is where Austen lived for five years, and both Persuasion and Northanger Abbey are substantially set in the city.

Austen's peerless depictions of Regency England still chime with audiences across the globe. But in 2005 she is also a brand, perhaps the most profitable literary brand. Her stock is certain to rise again in the coming weeks as the new Hollywood version of Pride and Prejudice, starring Keira Knightley and Matthew Macfadyen, hits cinemas in the UK.

The UK's multi-million pound Austen industry is gearing itself up for a busy autumn. If the film takes off, some believe the next few months could be as hectic as the heady days that followed Colin Firth's dripping Mr Darcy emerging from the lake in the 1995 television adaptation of Austen's best known work. David Baldock, director of the Jane Austen Centre, said: "The interest in Austen and her work continues to grow and grow. There is always a worry it will become too commercial, but what is happening is positive. It is bringing new people to her work."

The centre attracts 42,000 visitors every year, 90% of them women. In addition, its website is hugely popular, hosting 40,000 visitors last month alone. Encouragingly, the books are the best-selling items in the gift shop, probably followed by lacework, which the Americans and East Europeans particularly favour.

Mr Baldock said the centre was unashamedly commercial. An Austen festival it is organising later this month will include events such as Taste and Tasteability (already sold out), at which visitors will sample the sort of foods enjoyed by the writer, and "Jane Austen's Guide to Dating" - a chance to find out which Austen character would be your ideal romantic match.

Fever

At Austen's family home in Chawton, Hampshire, the curator, Tom Carpenter, hopes the new film will not reignite the sort of fever that followed the 1995 TV series. On the Monday after the latter began, the centre expected around 150 visitors - and 400 turned up. In 1996, 57,000 visitors arrived, compared with 25,000 in a normal year. The numbers have dropped back to the 25,000-30,000 mark, though Mr Carpenter accepts that the new film could spark another rush. But he said: "We wouldn't go looking for those numbers again. The village began to feel uncomfortable about it."

Others are not being so shy. Derbyshire county council plans to use the film, partly shot at Chatsworth, to promote long weekends. And a company called Hampshire Safaris is offering tours of north Hampshire, where the writer spent the early part of her life before moving to Chawton and Bath.

Perhaps surprisingly, many scholars appear at ease about the modern Austen cult and the commercialisation. Kathryn Sutherland, professor of textual criticism at Oxford University, said: "I don't really think of Jane Austen as precious. I don't think she should be fenced around."

Professor Sutherland said Austen became commercial "hot property" at the end of the 19th century. "At that point dons tried to turn her into something less accessible." But the people simply refused to let her go and she remained both "canonical novelist" and "abiding consumerist fantasy".

Deidre Lynch, assistant professor of English at Indiana University, admitted that after visiting Austen landmarks in England she had returned to the US with "tat", including a figure of Mr Darcy. "Austen has become part of the female gift culture," she said. "One curious thing is that 100 years ago, Austen was read mostly by men. Now it's a woman's thing because of the way the films have been marketed. Modern marketing seems to work by targeting one segment at a time."

Maggie Lane, honorary secretary of the UK's Jane Austen Society, is not a fan of the film adaptations, but is not worried that the writer is becoming too commercial. "That side isn't forced upon anyone. I think there is something in Jane Austen for everyone, and the more people that know about her the better."

Andrew Davies, who adapted Pride and Prejudice for the 1995 series, accepted "partial responsibility" for the Austen craze. He said: "I was surprised. I'm a terrific Jane Austen fan, but I never saw it as a majority sport.

"I find it quite amusing that there are products like a Pride and Prejudice board game on the market, but I'm pleased the figures seem to have been based on Colin Firth and Jennifer Ehle [who played Elizabeth Bennet in the BBC version]. Of course, it trivialises the thing, but actually you do need to be quite an expert on the book to do well. In the end I think it's harmless fun."

Novel destinations ...

BathCanny entrepreneurs have long been cashing in on Austen's association with this elegant watering hole (visit the Jane Austen Tea Rooms). She lived here for five years in her late 20s - you can see the plaque in Gay Street to prove it. It has been a backdrop for any dramatisation of the novels set in Bath - Northanger Abbey and Persuasion. The pump room, the named streets, the assembly room all remain. But most biographers believe her time in Bath was miserable (her beloved father died here). In the novels it is the resort of the vulgar and meretricious. Anne Elliot in Persuasion wishes to flee its 'white glare' (all those new buildings). Austen loved its theatre.

DerbyshireElizabeth Bennet tours the Peak District in Pride and Prejudice and encounters Mr Darcy when visiting his country seat, Pemberley. Mythology has identified the house with Chatsworth (far too grandiose) and hostelries in Buxton have implied they once entertained her. Austen almost certainly never visited. She got all her topographic detail from travel guides.

Lyme RegisAlready it was a picturesque destination for well-heeled trippers (equal to 'the far-famed Isle of Wight'). Austen visited and bathed. The Cobb still snakes into the Channel and you can enjoy locating where Louisa Musgrove rashly tried an exciting leap into Captain Wentworth's arms, only to have a near-death experience.

DevonIn Sense and Sensibility Eleanor and Edward have a memorable debate about whether this hilly county is lovely or horrid. Austen had a nice holiday in Dawlish and Teignmouth.

WeymouthNear Lyme, but not as genteel. How ironical was she when she wrote to her sister Cassandra, 'Weymouth is altogether a shocking place, I perceive, without recommendation of any kind'? But seaside towns are dodgy: Portsmouth is Fanny Price's grim home; Brighton is the den of sin where Lydia Bennet falls.

SurreyNot 'the garden of England' as the idiotic Mrs Elton claims, but the location for the Emma Woodhouse's Hartfield and her eventual husband Mr Knightley's idyllic Donwell Abbey. Based on this novel, a lovely place with horrible people. Visit Box Hill, where Emma insults Miss Bates over cucumber sandwiches.

KentAusten's rich relatives, the Knights, lived at Godmersham Park, near Canterbury, where her best vacations were taken. The grandest house she knew well, it is thought the model for Mansfield Park. Still, a grand house in Kent is home to the ghastly Lady Catherine de Bourgh.

LondonAusten loved trips to the capital. She would stay with brother Henry in Henrietta Street, Covent Garden. Londoners (John Knightley in Emma, the Gardiners in P&P) are often sensible people (though there are also the Crawfords ...).

· John Mullan is senior lecturer in English at University College London